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Superstrata’s e-bike is a strange specimen — there’s no two ways about it. In some ways that makes sense; the bike’s concept, borne out in seamless 3D-printed carbon fiber, springs from an equally strange premise. We’ll get into that. Talking to Sonny Vu, founder of Superstrata’s parent company Arevo , the bikes were crafted not out of a love of cycling, the hunt for a climate-friendly urban transportation solution or any traditional justification for going to all the trouble of making an e-bike. Instead, Vu created the Superstrata e-bike (and its non-electrified counterpart) as a proof-of-concept for Arevo’s carbon fiber manufacturing process . In that light, how the bike wound up makes perfect sense — even if buying one probably doesn’t. “Everyone thought we’re an e-bike company, but we’re not, we’re an advanced manufacturing company,” Vu told TechCrunch. We certainly can’t blame e-bike enthusiasts for being confused. Superstrata is deep into what Vu calls “deep tech” — basical...

Superstrata’s e-bike is a strange specimen — there’s no two ways about it. In some ways that makes sense; the bike’s concept, borne out in seamless 3D-printed carbon fiber, springs from an equally strange premise. We’ll get into that. Talking to Sonny Vu, founder of Superstrata’s parent company Arevo , the bikes were crafted not out of a love of cycling, the hunt for a climate-friendly urban transportation solution or any traditional justification for going to all the trouble of making an e-bike. Instead, Vu created the Superstrata e-bike (and its non-electrified counterpart) as a proof-of-concept for Arevo’s carbon fiber manufacturing process . In that light, how the bike wound up makes perfect sense — even if buying one probably doesn’t. “Everyone thought we’re an e-bike company, but we’re not, we’re an advanced manufacturing company,” Vu told TechCrunch. We certainly can’t blame e-bike enthusiasts for being confused. Superstrata is deep into what Vu calls “deep tech” — basical...

Countries worldwide have pledged to reduce their energy usage and reach net-zero energy targets by 2050. To get there, they will need to find clever ways to decarbonize especially dirty businesses, including the buildings sector. The push to clean up the built environment has spawned a lot policy, as well as overlapping acronyms, including net-zero energy buildings (nZEBs) and zero-emission buildings (ZEBs). In the EU, a ZEB requirement is expected to kick in on January 2030 for all new buildings. Likewise, the U.S. Department of Energy said it will retrofit new federal buildings that are greater than 5,000 square feet by 2030.   South Korea is  also taking measures to reduce emissions in the building sector by retrofitting buildings and strengthening ZEB requirements for new buildings through 2030.  Buildings are a major source of air , water and noise pollution . The built environment’s whole process — including materials manufacturing, construction, heatin...

Tesla recorded a $204 million impairment loss in 2022 on its bitcoin holdings, according to regulatory filings . The loss was offset by $64 million in profits from bitcoin trading, leaving the automaker with a net loss of $140 million. Tesla had invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin during the first quarter of 2021, stating that it believed in the longevity of the cryptocurrency. At the time, the company said bitcoin was a great place to store cash and still access it immediately, all the while providing a better return on investment than more traditional central banks. In fact, after its initial purchase, Tesla promptly trimmed its position by 10%, making the automaker a quick $101 million. In March 2021, CEO Elon Musk said Tesla would start accepting bitcoin as payments for Tesla vehicles, causing the price of the crypto to boom. A few weeks later, Musk and Tesla backpedaled on that decision , expressing concern for the amount of energy needed to mine bitcoin. The price of bitcoin the...

Countries worldwide have pledged to reduce their energy usage and reach net-zero energy targets by 2050. To get there, they will need to find clever ways to decarbonize especially dirty businesses, including the buildings sector. The push to clean up the built environment has spawned a lot policy, as well as overlapping acronyms, including net-zero energy buildings (nZEBs) and zero-emission buildings (ZEBs). In the EU, a ZEB requirement is expected to kick in on January 2030 for all new buildings. Likewise, the U.S. Department of Energy said it will retrofit new federal buildings that are greater than 5,000 square feet by 2030.   South Korea is  also taking measures to reduce emissions in the building sector by retrofitting buildings and strengthening ZEB requirements for new buildings through 2030.  Buildings are a major source of air , water and noise pollution . The built environment’s whole process — including materials manufacturing, construction, heatin...

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here . As January is coming to a close, the TechCrunch team is firing on all cylinders (do we still say that, in a time of electric cars? What is a better expression these days?), with a wall of amazing content for you to download straight into your brain. We’ve picked the cream of the crop, even as we are further confused as to why there was cream on the crops in the first place. In summary, idiomatic English continues to confound even the biggest language nerds among us. — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 Who’s calling? : T-Mobile’s data breach last week seems to have spilled over into Google Fi, which now says hackers accessed customers’ information. Carly has more. Home sweet HomePod : Brian plugged in the 2023 Apple HomePod and shares what he likes and doesn’t like about it. More layoffs : Cloud data management giant NetApp will lay off 8...

Monavo Heath turned heads at CES with an Ouroubouros-esque smart ring designed for women. In the crowded field of fitness wearables, where the mainstream heavy hitter of the Apple Watch heads up a very long tail of typically less pricey and/or more specialist activity tracking bracelets and bands all keen to claim their own patch of data-generating skin, it’s no small irony that differentiation at this point in the market’s run means designing a product to ‘target’ around half the population — as my colleague, TC’s hardware editor Brian Heater, dryly observed of Monavo’s pitch for a smart ring called “Evie” last month . But what does a wearable made for women actually mean in terms of utility and design? TechCrunch talked to Monavo Health’s CEO and director, John Mastrototaro, to get the inside track on the forthcoming smart ring and delve into its wider roadmap as it works on building a medical devices company whose starting point is simply putting women first. Monavo is kicking th...